Rising Voices
About
Rising Voices, an outreach initiative of Global Voices, aims to help bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the global conversation by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities.
Introduction
Founded in 2004 by a group of pioneering international bloggers, Global Voices aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online - shining light on places and people other media often ignore. However, over the years it became increasingly clear that certain regions, languages, and demographics were better represented in the online global conversation than others. The bloggers, vloggers, and podcasters featured on Global Voices tended to be urban, middle-class, and well-educated.
Launched in May 2007 thanks to the support of a Knight News Challenge Award, Rising Voices seeks to empower under-represented communities to make their voices heard online by 1.) providing financial support to outreach projects, 2.) developing a series of participatory media tutorials, and 3.) cultivating a network of passionate citizen media activists to help encourage and support the replication of outreach trainings.
Micro-Grant Competition
Every six months Rising Voices organizes a micro-grant competition, which awards five grants of US$1,000 to $5,000 for new media outreach projects. Ideal applicants present innovative and detailed proposals to teach citizen media techniques to communities that are poorly positioned to discover and take advantage of tools like blogging, video-blogging, and podcasting on their own. In July and December of 2007 we announced our first and second rounds of grantees. Future grant competitions are planned for May/June and November/December of 2008. You can learn more about the bi-annual grant competition by visiting the Apply page.
Outreach Curriculum
One of the most challenging obstacles to effectively training new communities how to take advantage of citizen media tools like blogs, podcasts, and online video is the lack of documentation in languages other than English. A series of six guides - each available in at least six languages - aims to clearly explain the tools, techniques, and potential of citizen media through the use of case studies and easily understandable tutorials. Rising Voices’ Introduction to Citizen Media will soon be joined by more explanatory guides on our Library page.
Get Involved
Subscribe to the Rising Voices Mailing List
Rising Voices is a global network of people who are knowledgeable and passionate about citizen media and want to see the benefits of self-expression extended to communities that have yet to come across these tools. You can subscribe to our mailing list below and join our Facebook group.
About Us
David Sasaki, Director of Outreach
Prior to his current focus on outreach, David served as Global Voices’ Latin America Regional Editor, monitoring the Latin American blogosphere, highlighting key content and translating select posts from Spanish to English. He transitioned into online journalism after working as a freelance web developer and English instructor in Monterrey, Mexico, and now splits his time and residence between North and Latin America. He writes frequently at Rising Voices, Idea Lab, and on his personal weblog.
Rezwan, Features Editor
Rezwan was born in 1971 during the liberation war in Chittagong, Bangladesh and is now located in Berlin, Germany. He started blogging in April 2003 at The Third World View, which tries to portray Bangladesh and Bangladeshis beyond the typical headlines seen in news. His hobbies include theatre, music, movies and reading. He speaks Bangla, English, German, and some Hindi and French.
